oboeinsight

BOO!

hoo …

Tis a scary and sad day … until those EH reeds get made!

Reading over at The Reedery Blog:

Sometimes doing personal stuff is a nice break from working, and sometimes it’s just hard to squeeze it in. That’s how my place ended up being such a pigsty.

Yes, indeed. Right now I’m embarrassed to look around the house. My laundry is done now, but needs folding and putting away. The kitchen? Never mind. The poor vacuum needs to be put to use, but reeds will have to come first. And I’ve not had time to get out to the store, either, so we are still missing Halloween candy (that will be taken care of this morning, prior to the English horn reed work time), and I need to pick up a few other things as well.

It’s so difficult to remember what summer was like now; I had no work. I was missing work. I was sad not to be working.

I’d use the old cliché “When it rains it pours” but I’m not going to. So you won’t have to hear an old cliché. Isn’t that a relief? No “When it rains it pours” written here. No sirree.

So anyway … HAPPY HALLOWEEN! Don’t eat too much candy. (Ever think about giving out reeds as a halloween surprise? If so, you know where to find me.
—–

But I be slightly hyper as well … typical after a performance. Even when it’s something as light as musical theatre. (Yes, I take musical theatre as seriously as anything. I feel that to think of one form of music as unimportant is simply a very bad idea, as it can lead to sloppy playing. I don’t want to go there.) But anyway, I’m wired. So it’s “come down” time.

The show went well; no problems in any way that would be noticeable to an audience. I could always go through my personal list of “coulda been better” moments, but I’m not going there.

But my English horn reeds. Grumble. They are not happy. Nor am I. The ones that I thought were workable, when I tried them all in my studio, are definitely unworkable. The ones I’ve used in that past are being overused and abused as I try to get something new together. The one little solo, which is on EH, went fine, but it was especially hysterical because no one heard it anyway; the audience was laughing and applauding a line that occured on stage right before the solo, and their noise overlapped with my solo. If only I could be so lucky every night! (This was probably our most appreciative audience; they—primarily students and seniors I believe—attend our final dress rehearsal and I suspect pay a lesser fee to do so, but they always are the loudest laughers and it’s great fun.)

Tomorrow is opening night. Between now and then I really must get an English horn reed I’m happy with. When I’ll find the time is a problem, as I have Santa Clara U and a private student to teach. But I really have no choice but to make it work, so that’s the plan.
—–

I’m home. But not for long.

I had a rehearsal this afternoon, but rather than go out to dinner downtown I came home. I can at least see Jameson and Dan for a brief moment, and I got some tasty pizza out of it too. (Thanks, Dan!) Now it’s back to work.

I wish I were feeling better about one little solo—the ONLY little solo—in this little musical. It’s not difficult. It’s just that I can’t make it work. I’m not sure why. Partly it’s the key, I think; I can’t stand the key. But somehow I am going to have to make it musical and not have notes go bonkers on me. (Yes, they really are going bonkers … it can’t be MY fault, can it?!)

But anyway, heigh-ho, heigh-ho … and all that jazz.
—–

It’s 11:20 PM and I’m already home! Nice, eh? Our rehearsal that was scheduled from 6:30 to 11:30 got out early.

I’m so relieved.

This was a very long day, due to some family stuff, then symphony, and then the rehearsal. And of course it feels as if it’s an hour later than it is because of the time change. So I’m pretty darn tired.

Tomorrow I have two rehearsals. Work continues. (As does “playing” of course!)

The concert today went well, although I had a difficult time focussing. This whole time change thing is for the birds. Or maybe for no living thing at all. But oh well, no one asked me about it.

I’m still trying to figure out why.
—–

Getting on stage tends to wake a person up just fine. I enjoyed the concert, and once again my friend and colleague, Pam Hakl, did a beautiful job! :-)

Now I set my clock back an hour. I love that extra hour! Tomorrow it’s a 2:30 performance and then I have a five hour rehearsal for The King and I.
—–

It’s 6:15. I will leave for the hall at 7:15. At 8:00 we will be starting the concert. And right now I’m very, very tired. I’m having a very difficult time imagining playing. The thought of picking up an oboe is beyond me.

But come 8:00—no, come 7:30—when I warm up (they have a concert talk prior to that that keeps us from playing), I have to be ready. Alert. I have to have my brain together. As well as my fingers. And I have to find the energy to work. Which I will.

When one has no choice, one finds a way. yes?

So there you go.

See you at around 10:30.
—–

I ran across Out West Arts (probably from someone’s link and I’m sorry I can’t tell you whose because I can’t remember!) and I think I’ll enjoy it.

The blogger, Brian, is in Los Angeles, but he treks on up here to see things (not in San José, or course, but in San Francisco where the Big Kids play).

On the right hand side of the page you can see “Later” which lists upcoming events. I’m assuming Brian is saying he’s going to all of these. Wow. The man must have megabucks.

In any case, I got a kick out of reading “Dear Cristine”.

I wish I could get to LA to hear some of the things he lists. Besides, it would be fun to hear the LA Phil’s new oboist, and see that fancy hall of theirs. But it ain’t gonna happen any time soon. And that’s life, yes?

In Other News
I’m alive but feeling somewhat sluggish. I have a concert tonight, so it’s nap time for this girl. I guess teaching until 2:00 zapped me a bit.

Now and then, a pork chop eagerly shares a shower with the tuba player living with a customer. A plaintiff completely seeks a polar bear. A movie theater shares a shower with a chestnut. An eggplant gives a pink slip to the tuba player. For example, a single-handledly impromptu bullfrog indicates that a class action suit beyond another burglar somewhat avoids contact with an ocean.

The self-loathing industrial complex Any bowling ball can figure out a financial spider, but it takes a real razor blade to seek a mating ritual. If a surly pork chop dances with a boiled grizzly bear, then the tape recorder around a stovepipe dies. Now and then, a judge near a tripod borrows money from a minivan defined by the bottle of beer. Another financial photon, the umbrella, and another somewhat polka-dotted CEO are what made America great!

The tabloid beyond a reactor

A spider over the cashier organizes the girl scout. If a non-chalantly incinerated insurance agent plays pinochle with an often fat tornado, then a scythe inside a dolphin gets stinking drunk. Furthermore, a wrinkled polar bear feels nagging remorse, and an overwhelmingly highly paid umbrella dances with the cashier. Any tape recorder can recognize an avocado pit, but it takes a real blithe spirit to plan an escape from a linguistic parking lot some buzzard toward a pig pen. The surly cargo bay requires assistance from a spider.

(Blame this entry on the tuba’s inclusion.)

Explanation
This is one sort of spam I receive. Nearly daily. With the tuba in it, I just had to put it here. Call me silly. (Please!)

If I have a hectic schedule I tend to not look ahead. It’s so difficult for my brain to wrap around one week, much less look forward to the next. This doesn’t mean I don’t know what’s coming up; I’m well aware that the next two weeks will be The King and I, with a bit of Barber of Seville thrown in. From opera, which extends past K&I, I return to symphony again, and Le Tombeau de Couperin (Ravel) is lurking there so I’ve been thinking about English horn reeds and working a bit on the little bit of technical work I’ll have on second oboe.

But only today did it hit me: After Sunday’s Symphony Silicon Valley concert I have a five hour musical rehearsal (which I was remembering) and THEN … sigh … Monday I have two three hour rehearsals of the musical. Oops! I hadn’t looked at Monday yet. So now I’ve quickly written my Monday students to see if we can reschedule (now maybe readers will understand why I charge weekly rather than monthly!) and if not I’ll miss seeing them. I hate missing my students, but sometimes that’s the only choice.

In any case, I had better really relish today! I have only two students (one cancelled) and I have no concert at all. How odd to play Thursday and then have Friday off. My next night off is November 6, and then the free night after that will be November 14.

This is always good news and bad news. Mostly good, of course. It means I’m employed. Nearly steadily. Like a real job. In fact, between teaching and playing, the only days, until Christmas, on which I have absolutely nothing on total a whopping … drum roll please … ZERO.

That’s right. Every day between now and December 25 I either teach or play (or both).

Hmmm. Maybe I’ll need to take something off. For my sanity.

(Whispering voices in my head are saying, “Too late … too late. Sanity is long gone.” ;-)

UPDATE
I just realized I had Thursday students scheduled on Thanksiving! Ain’t gonna happen. (Duh.) So there’s a day off. Sort of. (We always have the dinner here, so there’s work to be done.)
—–

I thought last night’s Symphony Silicon Valley concert went well. Pam played beautifully in the Bizet and got a well deserved bow. Much to my surprise the conductor had me stand after Pam. It’s true that the slow movement solo gets passed to the second oboe, but it never entered my mind that it would be noted. I’m afraid I didn’t stand immediately, as I couldn’t fathom that he was acknowledging me! One thing conductors might not realize is that we can’t always tell who they are looking at. (I always like it when they mouth the name of our instrument—then it’s quite clear.) I usually know when I’m to stand, as a solo is fairly obvious. But oh well … a moment of unprofessionalism on my part. Sigh.

The conductor, Martin West, is excellent. He said some things during the rehearsal that made me want to stand up and cheer. I do hope we have him return!

In Other News
I’d love to be able to hear this “new” old music (music that was taken from Germany by Russia after WWII). It’s to be published, so I guess eventually some pieces might make their way to some of our stages here in the US. I’m a fan of Telemann. I feel as if he’s one of the often neglected composers, and I’ve always enjoyed playing works by him. They seem to sit well on oboe.

Say What?
Read at a “food media blog”:

The interplay of taste, aroma, texture, and visual appeal is irreducible. Umami is just one instrument in the orchestra; it sounds lousy in solos but improves the rest of the orchestra. Understanding how an oboe enriches a symphony is important knowledge for any composer, but it would be absurd to choose your music based on minutes of oboe time.

Now wait a minute! Is this person implying that some orchestral instrument sounds lousy in solos? To which instrumnet is he or she referring? Seeing the oboe mentioned in the next sentence has me worried. Goodness me! We are the best when it comes to solos, are we not? (You may answer this if you know the correct answer! Otherwise just keep those opinions to yourself! ;-)
—–

I’m on the UCSC campus right now. My first student (who comes at a very early 8:30) is ill, so I had a bit of time to ready myself for a orchestration class where I’ll be demonstrating the oboe.

It’s always an interesting thing .. deciding what to tell them. What I’d love to say is, “Be kind to oboists!” I’d like to say, “Don’t do to the second oboist what Dvorak did!” (He loved low notes for some reason.) Or maybe I’d say, “Don’t make us play in the stratosphere … give it to those flutes, please!”

But should I?

We have to play what’s on a page. Sure, we have all of our excuses. But composers don’t really care, conductors won’t accept them (very often) and audiences haven’t a clue, for the most part, as to what is tremendously difficult and what is not.

Say, for instance, the long lines we get. It’s not all that often we encounter a solo that causes a tremendous breathing difficulty. We can go on and on, and the more difficult thing, at least sometimes, is deciding we really need to put in a breath even though we honestly don’t need it. (Watch an audience when an oboist goes on and on … they often look like they are all dying for air!) Our problem is often that we need to “dump air” (really carbon dioxide), not take oxygen in.

And then there are the low notes. Sigh. Low notes starting on pianissimo. Double sigh. Low notes starting on pianissimo with nothing prior to those low notes that allows us to ready ourselves.

There aren’t a whole lot of note combinations that drive me crazy. but when I am given a solo that goes back and forth between low B-flat (or A#) and B I cringe. That’s not a fun one. I also despise using the “banana key” but if I have to I will. I’ll just be sure to complain first.

And reeds. Do I tell them about reeds? Today is miserably dry. On the radio they were calling it “Desert Dry” and it sure feels like that. My skin is cracking, my lips are chapped, and I can’t keep a reed moist to save my life.

But why should a budding composer care about that sort of thing? That’s our problem, not theirs.

Certainly I’ll give them the range of the oboe. It seems as if our upper range keeps getting expanded, but I’m not going to suggest anything higher than F for now; many of these composers will have their pieces played by students who simply aren’t able to get higher. Even an F is a stretch for some students! (I occasionally go to this fingering chart to try new high note fingerings. I have to admit I can’t really get anything higher than an G# to work for me most of the time.

Mostly I think I like to say, as I wrote earlier, “Be kind.” So I probably will.